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Events - Day Waterman College production of Macbeth

 October 23rd 2009, the end of United Nations Week, was a day of celebration of Shakespeare around the world.  Schools around the world participated during this time by staging the production of a Shakespeare play.  The celebration was in conjunction with the Shakespeare Schools Festival, an organisation that enables school children aged 11 to 16 to perform abridged versions of Shakespeare's plays.  Its main aim is to try to get young "up and coming" actors to improve their dramatic skills through Shakespeare.

Despite being a relatively young school, Day Waterman College rose to this challenge on behalf of Nigeria.  Under the direction of the school’s highly creative drama teacher, Mr David Owen, the Year 8 & 9 students put on a very dramatic and highly successful performance of Macbeth.

The production was held in the ballroom of Lagos’ newest and most prestigious hotel, the Oriental.  The room was packed to capacity with over 200 people taking every available seat.

Most remarkable was the fact that all of the students who participated demonstrated such strong characterisation and confidence, in what was for them and the school, their first public appearance.  Moreover the audience could not help but be impressed by the energy and range of emotions portrayed by such young actors.

Also impressed by this production was Gloria Ebong, presenter of Channels TV Arts programme.  In fact her program, aired on October 31st, showed much of the actual production as well as interviews with the producer and some of the performers.

Shakespeare is not easy to learn, recite or perform but if you were to ask any of the students who participated if they enjoyed it and if they felt that it was worthwhile you would get an overwhelmingly positive response.

Even more proud of the students’ achievement were the many parents who attended the performance.  It was they who roared with applause at this dramatic performance and gave the ultimate accolade of a standing ovation.